Gil Spencer: Concealed carry license pays off in court

It was the fact that the defendant had a concealed carry permit that got Mike Benson's attention.

More than a decade ago, Benson, a computer salesman from Middletown, served as a juror in a drug and gun possession case out of Upper Darby.

As Benson recalled the facts of that case, the defendant, a young black man of about 30, had been charged as the result of a domestic dispute outside the home he shared with a woman and her kids.

The police were called to the scene and the angry woman told them that her boyfriend had illegal guns and drugs inside their home. A search of the house turned up a scale, plastic bags, cocaine residue and two guns. One was a .32-caliber Smith and Wesson. The other was a Mac-10 "street gun" with the serial number filed off.

Based on the word of his girlfriend, the man was arrested and taken to prison, where he stayed until his arraignment almost three months later.

It was during his trial that Benson learned about the defendant's concealed carry permit.

"That struck me as odd," said Benson, because he knew that it meant that the guy had passed a criminal background check.

"It means you cannot have any convictions and that he probably has a clean record."

Benson, himself had a concealed carry permit at the time. That the defendant had also qualified to get one suggested to Benson that he probably wasn't the sort of typical drug-dealing lowlife who comes through the system.

During the trial, the jury learned that the defendant had a job. He worked for a limousine service, and at one time he worked as a security guard at the Naval shipyard. That was another legitimate reason for him to own a gun and have a license to carry it.

"He seemed like a good kid and a decent guy," Benson said.

His lawyer, however, it seemed to Benson, didn't do a very good job of defending him. Though several witnesses were called to testify to his good character, Benson didn't recall the lawyer doing much to dispute the fact that the guns or the drugs were his.

The man did, however, testify that the scale the police seized wasn't for weighing drugs. He said he used it to weigh food portions for a diet he'd been on that helped him lose a lot of weight.

Benson believed that, too, because drugs like cocaine are generally measured out in smaller portions than the scale in evidence could measure -- grams, not ounces.

And so when he considered all the evidence, Benson had reasonable doubt as to the man's guilt.

When the jury began their deliberations, Benson brought up the gun permit and how this guy couldn't be a lifelong crook if he had one. He even showed his fellow jurors his own permit to make his point. He also talked about the scale and its inappropriateness for the task asserted by the prosecution.

And when they were all done deliberating, the jury found the defendant "not guilty" on all charges.

If the court docket can be believed, it was Judge William Toal Jr. who sat on the case.

I say "if," because there are numerous inaccuracies in the court docket, most significantly, the name of the prosecutor who handled the case.

On the docket the name Thomas A. Dinan, Esq. is listed as the attorney for the commonwealth. But Dinan wasn't even a licensed lawyer at the time of this trial, he was an intern in the DA's office. (I confirmed this with him last week.)

On the docket, the arresting officer is listed as Joseph M. Snyder. But at trial, the only Snyder who testified was an "OFC. David Snyder."

It also turned out that the man Benson thought was the defense attorney was there only as co-counsel, as the defendant decided to defend himself and operated pro se despite the warnings from the judge.

Whoever the judge was, Benson said, after the jury verdict, he thanked them and let them know that he thought they'd done a good and thoughtful job.

Moreover, Benson said, the judge told the jury there was information never brought up at trial that suggested the defendant was, in fact, not the guilty party in the case.

After the man's arrest, the judge said, the woman who accused him up and left the area with her children. As Benson recalled hearing it, the judge said the woman was the one with the drug problem and that she sold every stick of furniture the couple owned together and moved out of the area.

Why none of that information was brought up at trial, Benson said, "I still can't understand."

But the judge was saying that there was a good chance the drugs and the Mac-10 were the accuser's, not the defendant's.

In short, the judge conveyed to the jury, "You did good," which Benson was glad to hear.

Last week, I tried to track down the defendant but failed. There was a listing for a man his age and with his name in Philadelphia, but my calls went unreturned.

Still, Benson and his fellow jurors will be glad to know that there is no record of this man ever being arrested again.

Benson, who is white, said the defendant's license to carry was one of the things that helped convince him to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. And it trumped race, socioeconomic status and the bad presumption that the police are always right when they make an arrest.

Makes sense to me.

Gil Spencer's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Check out his spencerblog every day at delcotimes.com.